A Day At The Organization
by Saelan
Summary: If you're looking for intelligent life, you've come to the wrong place. Disclaimer: I do not own KH, or any of the characters, or anything, really. AND I don't hate any of the characters, so please don't bite my head off! 2008
1. Introductions

**Please keep in mind that this was written a LONG time ago; it was one of my first complete stories. If you find errors in spelling or grammar, please let me know. I'm going to keep this, and all of my other old stories, posted so I can track my crawling progress as a writer. Thank you for reading.**

"And who are you supposed to be?" the man with the eyepatch sniggered. "Sorry, kid, but we don't buy Girl Scout cookies." The crowd behind him laughed under their hoods, and the man's one yellow eye glinted in the dull light that seemed to come from the walls. Roxas glared at his superior, knowing now that he had a long road ahead if he wanted to be left alone, let alone respected.

"Hey, Vexen! Look what the little losers of darkness dragged in today! Another little squirt!" the man cackled, and a passing figure turned in disgust. The one named Vexen wasn't amused at all, and the look on his face gave Roxas the impression that he had somewhere better to be.

"The last time we got one as useless as this, it rained for three days because you broke his sitar..." Another cloaked man joined the conversation, and the one with the eyepatch grinned with amusement.

"Oh, come on, Xiggy... Lighten up on the kid a little, will you? Are you trying to scare off another one?" A woman with short blonde hair entered the room, seeming to care more about arguing with Xigbar than standing up for the newest member.

"Hello, Larxene... You seem to care about the little brat," he said, walking around Roxas toward her. "Think you've got a chance at a little boyfriend?" She smiled in a way that reminded Roxas of the face he had seen somebody make after they had stubbed their toe.

"I don't know. You seem to like him quite a bit... Is there something you aren't telling us, Number Two?" she asked. The rest of the group went wild with laughter, and Xigbar turned bright red; this had obviously floated to the surface at least once before.

"As if! Coming from the girl who's had so many boyfriends she can't keep 'em straight?" he retorted, very briefly satisfied with his answer.

"Is that what happened to you?" blurted out another, and a roar of laughter echoed in the seemingly endless room.

"Him? Oh, yeah right!" Larxene responded with a high pitched laugh. "As _if_!" Xigbar scowled and disappeared through a black cloud-like door that materialized, and the others followed.

"What have I gotten myself into this time?" Roxas said aloud after all visible potential enemies had departed. He looked down at the black uniform he had been given, which he would have thought was a joke if Saix hadn't been the one to hand it to him. A flash of movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see another Organization member enter the room.

"Let's see: huge mess, disaster, nightmare. Pick one," the other said almost jokingly.

"Seriously, are all of you total assholes, or is it just me?" Roxas replied, finally giving up on pretending he couldn't hear what was being said.

"Whoa, chill out before I have to drag you to Vexen. And they say _I'm_ the hot-head!" He stopped where he was and crossed his arms, looking as though he was simply bored.

"Well, excuse me for not having a happy first day!" Roxas said, turning to go the way Saix had instructed.

"I'm really sorry to tell you this, but I don't think you'll find much happiness here," he answered, and Roxas stopped and looked back. "If that's what you're after, then I think your fluffy pink pony made a wrong turn on the way to Super-Happy-Fun-Land."

"Excuse me?" Roxas yelled, finally losing his temper. "And what wonderful world are you from?" The other member laughed and began to walk around the room, like a tiger pacing in its cage.

"Trust me when I say you don't want to know."

"And why should I trust you? Give me one good reason I shouldn't take you down like a Heartless!" He laughed again and stopped walking, daring Roxas to do something stupid.

"But I'm not a Heartless, although I would like to see you try... And your trust issues are not my problem." The Keyblade appeared in Roxas' hand and he charged forward to show this loser what he was made of, but at the last moment the Key collided with metal and he found himself staggering backwards.

"And who are you supposed to be?" he asked, bringing the Keyblade forward again, only to find that his intended target was still blocked.

"I guess I'm supposed to be your tour guide, although right now I wouldn't mind leaving you here with one of these sticking out of your head," he replied, indicating the chakram he was using as a shield from Roxas' temper tantrum. He let the Key fall to the floor, deciding that attacking another Organization member was not something that he should be doing.

"Aw, come on! You're giving up already?" another person shouted from the doorway. He began walking toward them now that the battle was over. "Don't let him get to you! Watch this!" The new hooded figure held out his hand and grabbed the blue guitar-like weapon that appeared.

"I swear, if you play that thing, you'll get yours!" the first person threatened, throwing the metal stars to the side and stepping forward.

"I'm not afraid of you!" the sitar player shouted, doing what appeared to Roxas as a strange little dance. When the other stepped forward, he began to play, and sent a stream of geysers crashing toward his opponent from all sides. Happy to have actually hit the target, the strange Nobody started laughing as his dripping-wet enemy started forward again. From the force of the water, his hood had been knocked back, and from the expression on his face, he seemed to have lost all sanity. With his red hair plastered to his head and taking on an odd shade of maroon, the one Roxas had fought with looked as though he had just come back from the beach with the other residents of the asylum.

"Not afraid, huh? We'll see about that." He stopped and held his hand up in the direction of the celebrating figure, who began to panic once fire began to eat away at his cloak in several places. After a moment of dancing around and screaming, he finally had enough sense to surround himself with water. The one with the red hair smirked.

"What? It was funny, at least until you tried to kill me!" the other one yelled, doing another strange movement as he peered through the new hole in his cloak. He lowered his burnt hood, causing his enemy to laugh and Roxas to stare in horror. "What are _you_ laughing at? You look like you just got done swimming in a pond of ugly!"

"Was that supposed to be an insult? And I don't plan to travel to your home world, thank you." The one that controlled water glared at Roxas and the other, who was now bent over from laughing at the other's new haircut.

"Um... I think you have a problem..." Roxas said, pointing to his own head. He reached up, and a horrified look passed over his face.

"Hey, Demyx, at least you don't look like Number Four anymore!"

"It's not funny!"

"Yes, it is!"

"Is not!"

"You know, you're right... It's not funny, it's hilarious!"

"You're funny! Funny looking!"

"Whatever you say, Mr. 'Melodious Nocturne'!"

"You're the 'Thing-I-Don't-Know of Dancing Flames'!"

"Well, I would be if that damn sitar of yours would disappear and stop making the flames vomit instead!"

"What kind of name is 'Axel', anyway?"

"What about 'Demyx'? 'Demi' means half. So what are you?"

"Do you guys ever stop?" Roxas asked, looking at the doorway as if it would run away.

"We stop when he either says something really stupid, or one of us can't think of anything else," Axel replied, as a column of fire surrounded him and made the water crackle out of existance. "Or he explodes, which looks like it already happened." Roxas took another look at Demyx's new hair style and began to walk toward the doorway... At least there were a few others here who weren't as uptight as that Saix guy...

"Where are you going?" Demyx asked, looking quickly between Roxas and another new hole in his cloak. "I can't imagine that you have anything important to attend to."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Roxas asked, trying to look offended, and suceeding halfway because Demyx flinched and stepped back.

"N-nothing! It's just... Life here isn't particularly interesting, that's all!" Axel rolled his eyes and glanced toward the entrance to the previous room.

"You can be such a push-over sometimes, little Melodious one!" Demyx grimaced and looked like a pouting child for a moment. "Remember when you let Bigrax walk all over you last week? It was kind of pathetic, really..." There was a short pause and Roxas burst out laughing.

"You're kidding me, right? You mean that there's some poor loser here who's name is 'Bigrax'?"

"Well, not technically. It's more of a nickname."

"For the highest ranking and biggest jerk of Organization XIII, as we are now called... His real name is Xigbar," Axel explained in distaste; Xigbar obviously wasn't an incredibly popular guy.

"So where did the name come from?" Roxas asked, picturing the man with the scars and eyepatch doing something very stupid and disturbing.

"You just switch the letters," Demyx said simply, shrugging. "There's not much else to do around here right now."

"The head honcho has the worst one, though. He's Xemnas. I'll leave you to figure that one out yourself... I don't really want to have my head chopped off by a light saber, thank you very much!" Axel joked as they began walking toward the door Roxas had been staring at all along. He now realized that he was stuck in a place that he knew absolutely nothing about.

"What do you mean _light saber_?" he asked, picturing some kind of lunatic in a black cloak, whacking random objects with a light saber.

"Look at it this way: if you're lucky, you'll never understand," Axel replied as they continued onward to somewhere Roxas guessed he was supposed to go.

"Oh. What happened to the Xigbar guy? Was he messing with the wrong person at the wrong time, or is he just that ugly?" Roxas asked, as Demyx shuddered at the name.

"It would... serve you well to stay _away_ from Xigbar... He's nothing but trouble. If you don't, you'll probably end up looking kinda like him," he squeaked, obviously having had more than one unpleasant encounter with the one-eyed man.

"Yeah, he'll probably try to use you for target practice... Like that one time right after I joined," Axel said. "Back then, Saix was a fairly new member, and ol' Xiggy decided to see if X really did mark the spot..."

"Let's just say that Saix's face is not a bullseye," Demyx finished, making the others laugh.

"Any idiot could have told you that was a bad idea, even Lexaeus! Well, any idiot except Xiggy, anyway!"

"So Xigbar likes to mess with people, right? And I should stay away from Xemnas and Saix if I can help it, right?" Roxas asked sarcastically, and Demyx nodded furiously, like he was on a sugar high.

"And Xaldin can be unpleasant as well... Whatever you do, if he's in or around the kitchen, _don't touch anything_, or you'll likely lose a finger, or more," Axel remarked.

"Not even the grapes," Demyx added, as if it was the most important bit of information.

"Then there's the rumors about him and Xiggy," he said in a tone that showed disgust. "I still can't see that... Xiggy and the Ape Man! Once you see the other one, and try to picture them together, it's an extremely disturbing scene."

"And what about that Vexen guy?" Roxas asked, remembering the glance he had thrown Xigbar and the others, full of obvious dislike. "He seemed to be in a hurry earlier."

"What about him? Poor loser has no life, so he was probably on his creepy, paranoid way back down to the basement to his ever-growing collection of clones... It's where he belongs, if you ask me," Axel explained as the other Nobody fell to the ground like he had been shot, laughing hysterically. "You know it's true! He has at least thirty clones of himself down there, and he literally talks to 'himself' more than the usual insane human does."

"It sounds like he lost his brain when he lost his heart," Roxas added as he watched Demyx rolling around on the floor like an idiot.

"No, his brain's still there, but I'll bet Luxord that his heart out-lived his mind by a long shot. Hey Dem, imagine a Vexen Heartless!" Axel laughed, as Demyx started laughing like a maniac again. "But seriously, can you imagine torturing anything so much as to stick _his_ head on it?" Roxas, vaguely remembering what this person looked like, decided that he would have to agree.

"Imagine... Head... Shadow Heartless..." was all Demyx managed to choke out before returning to his fit of laughter, his face streaked with tears. "Re... Re... Respect your elders!" he yelled, miming the words with his hand, as if he was part of a drugged up puppet show. Even Roxas, who knew absolutely nothing about this man, couldn't help laughing.

"The old goat doesn't have enough sense left to walk a straight line... What's there left to respect, his extreme level of insanity?" Axel laughed as Demyx dried away the rest of his tears and finally stood up.

"He sounds like a real nut job," Roxas concluded, wondering if there really was a psychotic old man living in the basement of the castle. "Are there any other people I should know about, since I honestly don't want to figure any of this out first hand?"

"Larxene. Make her mad and she'll practically go cannibal on you. Marley... He's nothing to really be worried about," Demyx said, counting off the people on his hands. "Except..."

"Beware the cow plant up on the roof, and never, ever assume he's a woman under any circumstances, or you'll get yourself decapitated."

"It was funny with Xiggy, though. Anyway, never play any kind of game with Luxord because he cheats and takes everything you've got, just stay away from Saix altogether, don't touch Zexion's books, don't call Lexaeus 'Rockhead', mess with Vexen but don't push him too far, stay away from the kitchen when Xaldin's around, ignore Xiggy and he'll eventually go away, and if Xemnas gets mad for _any_ reason (or if he's smiling), _run_, run _away_!" Demyx finished, looking proud that he had just explained Organization XIII in a nutshell.

"O-kay... I'll be sure to remember that..." Roxas replied, on the verge of running out the front door and hiding under a rock somewhere far, far away, where these psychos would never find him.

"And the sad thing is that it's all true," Axel added as they continued their seemingly endless trek to an unknown place. "Welcome to Organization XIII."

"Seems more like the asylum for the obsurdly insane." Roxas gestured toward the white walls.

"Very true, most of the members are a little bizarre, but..."

"Bizarre? Coming from the guy who looks like he got run down by a lawnmower?" Axel snickered as Demyx's hand flew to his head again.

"Oh, shut up!"

"'Now that's just plain rude'!"

"Ugh! You are so annoying!" He covered his ears and stared up at the ceiling, humming something that didn't even remotely sound like a song. "I'm not listening!"

"Like you ever do... Anyway, this is the funny farm in more than one way, so don't expect too much from the experience, or something will probably spontaneously combust." A door behind them opened, and a short cloaked figure walked out, nearly sprinting, and carrying a book. Demyx stopped humming and grinned in an evil way.

"Hey, Zexy!" The person came to a halt and stared back at them, far from pleased at being called that name.

"What... happened to you?" the person asked, pointing to the top of his hood.

"To make a long story short..."

"Demy was being an idiot again," Axel interrupted and the other seemed to nod in agreement.

"I see... Well, good luck with that." He turned back toward the door and hurried away from them.

"Is that really his name?" Roxas asked as Demyx crossed his arms moodily.

"Kind of. Zexion. Everybody just calls him that to make him mad. You have to admit, it _is_ an awful name, Zexion."

"I still say Xemnas is the worst name," Demyx said, returning to the real world, "even though they only call him that behind his back."

"What do you...? Oh..." Roxas started, thinking anybody to call Xemnas that to be both very brave and very stupid. "You guys actually call him that?"

"Sometimes. Usually only when he does something stupid. And to think he's our leader!"

"Hey, who are you guys talking about? Mister Mansex?" the man with the eyepatch asked as be entered the room. "Teaching the little squirt all of the important stuff, huh?"

"Oh, get lost, Bigrax!" Axel replied, to Xigbar's dismay.

"Whatever, Ale!"

"You don't even know what my other name is, do you?" he sneered. Apparently, Xigbar didn't. "And I'm definitely not going to be the one to tell you."

"You think I care? As if!" Xiggy shrugged.

"Your loss. Oh, and remember those pictures that magically appeared everywhere? What was it called? Oh, yeah... Xiggy, the 'Pritty' Birdie!" Axel said, trying to keep a blank face at Xigbar's look of absolute horror.

"You are _not_ doing that again!"

"Whatcha gonna do about it? Go tell wittle Saix about it? I'm so terrified!"

"You know, you guys are a real drag," he said, and then disappeared through another portal of darkness.

"Xiggy the '_Pritty_' Birdie?" Roxas was amused by anything that could possibly look like a Xigbar bird.

"You'll see, the next time the jerk tries to mess with us, which will probably be very soon," Demyx replied as they finally reached what would come to be known as the Throne Room.


	2. The Meeting

"So, as you can probably see, it is, in absolutely no way, amusing to blow up the toilets," Zexion explained as he paced across the middle of the room. A few of the other members snickered from their seats, receiving a murderous glance from the speaker. "We are all grown up enough to know, as well, that it is also not funny to draw inappropriate pictures on the walls and blame Namine."

"Hey, Xiggy! I didn't know your mommy was part of the Organization!" somebody shouted, causing a wave of laughter and Zexion to lose the remainder of his patience.

"Okay, fine! If everybody starts acting their age, then none of us will have to sit through another etiquette meeting! Are there _any_ questions regarding this, at all?" he exploded, to the amusement of almost everyone. Roxas couldn't believe that he had to come listen to this at least once a week... How stupid could these people possibly be?

"We get it, Zexy! Move on." Zexion teleported to his seat, and Vexen took his place, looking creepy and simply irate. The oldest member of the Organization looked as though he had gone off of the deep end because he was covered with what appeared to be soot, and his face was twitching as if it was trying to find a way off of his head.

"And I would like to warn whoever has been thieving from my laboratory that next time they won't be so lucky," he threatened the room as a whole, shaking his fist at no person in particular.

"Hey, Vixen! Is 'thieving' even a word," somebody yelled from across the room, "or is it just another figment of your imagination?" Vexen gritted his teeth and pointed at the hooded speaker.

"You, sir, must learn a lesson in respecting your elders!" he said, and Roxas now understood what Demyx had meant earlier that day. "You think that just because I've gotten on in years that I can't take you?"

"Oh, I don't know, Gramps... I think you've gotten on in centuries!"

"That can be interpreted two ways... I know you can't fight, and I won't even think about the other," a deep voice replied from next to Vexen's seat. The older man bared his teeth like a wild animal, and cast a furious glance at those sitting near Xemnas' empty seat, then turned and stormed out of the room toward his door to the basement.

"Psychotic old fart," said a man across the room who appeared to be shuffling a deck of cards. Everybody else seemed to agree, except for Zexion and Lexaeus, who just ignored this comment and all others made about him. Roxas had learned that they were stuck with Vexen more than anybody else, so he thought they were wise to at least remain invisible to him. Another speaker stepped forward, having decided he should try his luck with the rebellious members.

"If I could have your attention for a moment..." Marluxia said, staring at who Roxas knew to be Xigbar, daring him to say something. "As you have probably heard, the construction of our main headquarters is almost complete. In two weeks, you will be assigned to stay here, relocate, or travel between to assist those stationed in both places. Do not ask to be placed somewhere, although it may be safe to assume that you are going to relocate because few will remain here. At that time, I am pleased to announce that I will become head of Castle Oblivion, and that this bullying nonsense _will_ come to an immediate end. Thank you for your time." He returned to his seat, and the group sat in silence for a moment before Saix adjourned the pathetic meeting.

"Why wasn't Xemnas there?" Roxas asked as he walked with Axel, Demyx, and a man he had never seen before out of the meeting room and into what he guessed was a room for the members to do whatever they wanted.

"He has better things to do... Pick anything in the universe and I can practically guarantee you that it's better than sitting through one of those meetings," the man said. "He shows up every once in a while, but for the most part, President Mansex stays away. Wise choice, too." He took a seat on the couch and began playing solitaire with the cards he had been messing with during the meeting.

"It's hard to believe that anyone would be stupid enough to blow up a _toilet_... There are so many more things here that are easier, more fun, and more sensible to blow up that a freaking toilet! And that meeting didn't even scratch the surface of what those useless idiots did this week," Axel said, watching the card player change the card in his hand because it wasn't what he wanted. "Luxord, you are such a cheater!"

"Ha! I told you!" Demyx yelled triumphantly, jumping up from his chair. "I knew you didn't win that poker game!"

"What do you care?" Luxord asked, drawing a new card. "It was Xiggy who lost all of his munny, not you."

"But it still proves my point!"

"What? That you're insane, and you can never let anything go?" Axel answered sarcastically. "Oh, wait... We already knew that!" Demyx stuck out his tongue and took his seat, watching Luxord as though he was expecting him to do a flip.

"They should get a hobby or something. It seems like Xiggy never leaves anybody alone," Roxas commented as he sat next to Luxord on the couch and Axel leaned against the wall opposite them.

"To be completely honest, I don't think he's good at anything else," the card player responded, picking up all of the cards to shuffle and start again. "See? I admit I lost... That's not cheating!"

"But five kings in one deck of cards is!" Demyx argued, and Luxord grinned. "I'm not that stupid!"

"So you say."

"Back to Xiggy. He's good at shooting things, warping, and annoying the hell out of people. That's it," Axel said as Demyx continued trying to find things that Luxord was doing wrong.

"Do you guys have any ideas who's been stealing stuff from Vexen?" Demyx asked without shifting his eyes. "It can't be Xigbar 'cause he was at dinner last night when the alarm went off."

"Not the slightest," Luxord answered as he cleared the third row of cards. "The old goat's probably doing half of it in his sleep and Larxene or somebody else is making him lose the remainder of his sanity by making the rest of his crap disappear."

"That's very possible... Everybody knows that it's fun to mess with him!" Axel added jokingly as the door opened and Marluxia entered, looking irritated.

"What's up with you?" Demyx asked as Axel and Luxord pretended the newcomer wasn't there. He looked up in Roxas' direction, but seemed to look straight through him.

"Such imbeciles... How they find their way back to their quarters, I have no idea, but in a very short time they'll find their way away from me. Saix can deal with them on his own," he responded, shaking his head in disgust. Axel glanced up and Roxas saw a look of annoyance cross his face.

"What do you think about Vexen's problem?" he asked Marluxia, who now looked like a cornered animal that was trying to find any possible way to defend itself.

"With all due respect to Number Four, which problem do you speak of?" The rest of the group laughed darkly, and Luxord began shuffling his cards again.

"The disappearing experiments. You know, like the one he was freaking out about last night."

"Yes, well, it will be resolved very soon, and none of those _children_ will be in any position to bother Vexen, or any other member."

"I wish you the best of luck with that," Luxord snorted as he laid the ace of hearts off to the side, then switched one of the cards in his hand with one that was at the bottom of the biggest pile while Demyx wasn't looking.

"I need no luck, but soon they will find themselves in trouble deeper than they've ever imagined." Luxord and Axel exchanged glances of boredom and disbelief that anybody could be as in love with their own stupidity as Marluxia, and Demyx looked completely terrified. Roxas, knowing nothing of this "plan" to rid the Organization of its idiots, decided that if he ever needed to bother Marluxia he would just ask Xigbar to make an appearance.

"It's a shame they're so thick... It would be nice if somebody could find an ounce of intelligence in their empty skulls, but I rather doubt that such a thing will ever happen." Marluxia shook his head again, then stepped through a dark portal, leaving nothing except a scattered pile of pink rose petals behind.

"Don't mind him too much," Axel said to Roxas, grounding the nearest petal into the carpet with his foot. "He has a very unhealthy crush on himself."

"It's a little scary, actually. And to think _this_ one's afraid of him! What, do you wet yourself whenever Xaldin comes around a corner?" Luxord teased, with a look of mild dislike from Demyx. "It's a little pathetic, if you ask me."

"Well,_ I_ didn't hear anybody ask _you_!" Demyx replied, crossing his arms. "And you're still a cheater!"

"I am not!"

"Yes, you are!"

"Will you two _please_ shut up?!?" Roxas yelled, knowing that life with these people would be strange, boring, and utterly unbelievable.


	3. Revenge Is Sweet

For this chapter, I have to give credit to Psycrowe (DeviantArt) and Dr. Bombay (for the song "My Sitar").

Roxas was happy when the first day was over, or as happy as you can be when you're surrounded by annoying, spasmodic freaks and you no longer have a heart. At the end of it all, he could think of absolutely nothing else except a few hours away from the insanity, especially after Xigbar and Larxene threw every sharp object they could find in the members' dinner. This, of course, did not go down well with Xaldin the cook, or Lexaeus, who spent about five minutes trying to repair the gaping hole in the left side of his face. Therefore, everybody gave up on the idea of food and decided it would be a great plan to give the enraged Xaldin some space by evacuating the area as quickly as possible.

Number Thirteen laid on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, looking back on the day, and wondering where his right mind had been when he had joined the Organization early that morning. Everything was silent and peaceful for nearly an hour...

"... I play the sitar, sitar, wherever I GO!!!" somebody screamed as loud as they could from the hallway. Roxas awoke with a start and slowly stumbled to the door, then threw it open to see Demyx in his underwear halfway down the hall, doing some kind of crazy dance as he shrieked the awful song that was everybody's wake-up call. "I play my SI-TAR, wherever I go!!!"

"Shut the hell up!" Luxord yelled from across the hall a few doors down. "The sane people are trying to sleep!"

"Ya know, you guys are _no_ fun, at all!" Demyx drawled, then he began to spin around for a moment and ended up walking face-first into the nearest wall. His last stop on the great spin of doom, however, was straight into Saix, spilling the water the other had been carrying all over both of them. A strange silence fell over the occupants of the hall as Demyx slowly looked up at his superior. Saix's hair began to stand on end and his face contorted into a vicious snarl.

"Run, you idiot!" Zexion shouted and Demyx snapped to attention and started running for his life in Roxas' direction. The look on his face conveyed the belief that the end of the world was coming his way, and Roxas doubted he could outrun it... Saix was on the warpath.

"I'M SORRY!!!" he screamed as he tore down the hall. "DON'T KILL ME!!!" As he was coming nearer to the dead end of the hall, he did the smartest thing Roxas had seen any of the Organization members do up to this point: he warped to some unknown location far, far away from Saix, who was now tearing great shreds out of the wall like a giant cat. Now that his prey had escaped, Saix began to return to his normal state, although he still looked as if he wanted to kill somebody without any mercy with his bare hands, and probably his teeth as well.

"All of you... GET YOUR DEPLORABLE, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING ASSES OUT OF HERE!!!" he roared, nearly ripping Larxene's door off of the hinges. "As of now, if I catch you wandering around at night, I _will_ sentence you to maximum punishment!" He stormed out of view, leaving behind an empty silence and the mystery of what had just taken place.

"What happened to Demyx?" Roxas asked Axel as everybody began to gather out in the hallway to discuss the event quietly.

"I don't know, but I don't see Xiggy anywhere, so he's probably the source of the problem," he replied, watching Vexen cross the hall and enter an unmarked room that Roxas hadn't noticed before. Zexion glanced in their direction several times while talking to Luxord, and Marluxia gave them both a look of extreme disapproval, then the mob of spectators began to disperse.

"So, now they're all blaming us for what happened?"

"It looks that way. I guess it's time for a little revenge on Xigbar..." Axel turned back to his room, and Roxas followed, knowing nothing useful he could do otherwise. This room was just as empty as his own, blank white walls and nothing on the shelves or any of the other pieces of furniture; he guessed that this was how most of the members' rooms looked, as empty and lifeless as the place their hearts used to be.

"What exactly are we going to do?" Roxas asked, examining the strange symbol in the tile, and recognizing it as the emblem of the Organization.

"Beat him at his own game. Stick something in his food. He seems to like doing that quite a bit," Axel explained, pulling a small glass bottle out of a drawer of the desk. "Some of this should teach him." He shook the bottle and it began to foam and bubble like a can of soda, except it was a disgusting greenish brown color.

"You're going to put that in his food? How?" Axel grinned menacingly, and put the bottle in his pocket.

"Not his food... Let's just say that Xiggy likes to float above the world of mortals and Heartless when he gets in a good mood... We'll pay a trip to Xaldin and see if he'll help us out with his little drinking buddy."

"I don't think Xaldin's going to help with this plan," Roxas said, remembering that he had seen them having a good time in the kitchen earlier, although he also recalled that after about ten minutes Xigbar was chased out by one of Xaldin's flying ginsus.

"Oh, you'd be surprised. And after he spent all day working on that stupid stew, I think he'll probably agree to give Xiggy a run for his munny." Axel began walking toward the door to put the plan in action, but Roxas knew that doing something such as this tonight was a bad idea.

"And what about Saix?"

"He's really no problem. He's all talk and temper, and not a great fighter. I've already beaten him once, and I'd love to see him try to do it again. Besides, we're not going through with the entire plan tonight... We just need some of Xaldin's sake, seeing as he's the only person who has any left after New Year's. I bet that's what the idiot put in Demyx's food, anyway."

"You mean that he actually _ate_ some of_ that_?"

"Yeah. As I'm sure you'll soon learn, Dem's a black hole. He'll eat anything, really, even if it's burnt and covered in toilet water," he said, and Roxas stopped walking, wondering who would do something like that and why. "You probably don't want to know."

"I don't."

"Wise choice." He knocked on one of the doors near the end of the hallway, and somebody groaned like a bear inside. Xaldin opened the door and looked as though he wasn't entirely there, and he was still holding an empty bottle.

"What the fuck do you want?" he growled at the company he obviously didn't want there.

"Xiggy's downfall. Can we have some of that?" Axel asked, pointing to the bottle, and trying to look like he had good intent.

"You're underage. No sake for you."

"Are you sure that's a bright idea?"

"Yes, I'm very sure. Good night!" Xaldin threw the bottle at Roxas, who barely dodged it, then tried to shut the door. To his dismay, however, the chakram in the way wouldn't budge.

"I'm sorry, but we can't take no for an answer. May we have some now?"

"I've already told you: NO!" Roxas understood at that moment why Number Three was commonly known as "The Ape Man", for he greatly resembled an angry mountain gorilla.

"Okay, but it's your fault when..." There was a loud crash from inside the room, and Xaldin turned and began screaming his head off.

"You little...!" The entire front part of the room was on fire, and the collection of flammable bottles on the nearest shelf began to explode one by one. "Stop it!"

"Only if you agree to hand over a bottle and you don't tell anybody where it came from."

"Whatever the hell you want!" There was a violent hissing sound and the fire disappeared, and the furious Xaldin finally stopped yelling and started muttering to himself instead.

"Arigatou, and have a nice day." He glared at them as they left, and began shouting very disturbing curse words once he closed the door, which now had a hole near the handle through which black smoke was billowing.

"That's one way to persuade somebody," Roxas commented as they went back to their rooms. "And good luck with whatever you're going to do to Xiggy."

"Oh, you'll be there, too. Everybody'll be there. I don't think life around here will be quite as annoying after Demyx gets back. I mean, there's no point in getting revenge for somebody when they aren't there to see it."

"Yeah, true." Roxas closed his door behind him, and wondered if he should even bother to get out of bed tomorrow.

"You know, Xigbar, that was really low what you did yesterday," Larxene said at breakfast the next morning. They were sitting a few seats down from Roxas, who was listening intently to their conversation since Axel was nowhere to be found and Demyx hadn't made an appearance yet.

"What? The kid's useless anyway, might as well get some entertainment out of him!" Xigbar replied, stabbing his raw potatoes moodily, and glaring at Xaldin, who had sabotaged his food because of the catastrophe at dinner the night before.

"Yeah, but you didn't have to get him _that_ drunk, especially when you _stole_ the sake from Xaldin!" she argued, and Xigbar sat back in his chair like a stubborn child who was being severely reprimanded by their parents.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Next time they should think twice about sticking those stupid bird pictures everywhere! Everybody still calls me that!"

"What? Xiggy the 'Pritty' Birdie?" Marluxia asked as he walked past, smiling as if that had just made his day.

"You know, those guns _do_ kind of make you look like a bird," Larxene teased, laughing at the look of pure hatred on his face. Roxas heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Demyx slowly enter the room, followed by Axel, who looked annoyed aboutsomething.

"Hiya, Roxy," he snorted stupidly as he somehow managed to sit at the table. It was easy to see that he was still pretty drunk.

"I found him trying to ride Marley's cow plant up on the roof," Axel explained, shaking his head in disbelief. "And I thought he was an idiot before..."

"What about... You know," Roxas asked quietly, and Axel grinned like a meteor was going to come crashing down and land on Xiggy.

"Everything's ready. We just have to give him this." He pulled out a silver flask and handed it to Roxas, who examined it for a moment until Demyx tried to steal it from him. "I was going to have _him_ give it to him, but it seems his brain cell count is lower than it usually is. Xiggy doesn't trust me _at all_, so I guess you're the postal service of doom."

"What's going to happen to him?" Roxas asked as he stood up and tried to avoid Demyx's arms as he attempted to get the flask away from him.

"Nothing serious. But you'll see," Axel replied, punching Demyx in the arm to keep him from ruining the plan by chugging down the concoction. Roxas rolled his eyes and walked over to where Xigbar had been sitting, but at that moment he was having a rather loud argument down the table with Xaldin, and Larxene had her head down on the table, laughing at him. Roxas put the flask on the table and hurried back to where he had been sitting to watch the great show that was about to be performed. Xigbar stormed back to his seat, now planning to eat all of the uncooked food for some unknown reason, and his face lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw the shiny silver bottle next to his plate.

"What's this?" he asked, poking Larxene furiously.

"I don't know," she answered, wiping her eyes and watching him open the lid and sniff the liquid. Demyx watched like a starved animal, and Axel looked absolutely disgusted as he held Demyx in his seat, and Roxas knew he was wondering whether or not Xigbar could smell the special ingredient. But Xiggy merely shrugged and drank the entire bottle at once, then took a seat and looked unhappily at the cold, hard meal in front of him. A few seconds later, his nose began to turn orange and grow, and his ears vanished, but nobody seemed to notice except Larxene, who stared at him wide-eyed and silent. Then he picked up his fork and speared a piece of frozen sausage, but on its journey to his mouth, he found it falling back down to the plate as his fingers disappeared. This didn't really catch his attention as he was talking to Lexaeus across the table, but Roxas noticed that Lexaeus could look at nothing except his long, orange, clicking mouth. Zexion stopped walking toward the refrigerator and stood there, watching strange gray patches appear all over Xigbar's face and arms. Vexen started laughing quietly as the gray things spread until he was covered from head to toe with them, and Luxord, who was returning from the bathroom, leaned against the doorway when he saw that Number Two had grown a tail. Now everybody except Xigbar had noticed the change, and he stopped talking to Lexaeus, who obviously wasn't listening to him anymore, and looked around at them like they were aliens or something.

"What?" he asked, glancing over at Saix, who now had his mouth agape and his head cocked to the side like a mutant dog.

"Birdie!" Demyx said loudly, clapping his hands without any good reason.

"You know, he's right," Xaldin laughed, pointing to Xigbar, who was now looking at his feathered hands and appeared to be on the verge of vomiting.

"Hey, guys! It's Xiggy the 'Pritty" Birdie!" Axel yelled, and nearly everybody in the room laughed as Xigbar looked at himself in the side of the flask.

"You know, Xigbar," Vexen said, trying to keep himself from bursting out laughing, "you're a really ugly bird!" He looked back at Vexen stupidly like he didn't comprehend what had been said, then ran screaming out of the room, flapping his arms like a massive chicken.

"That... That was so worth the sake!" Xaldin exclaimed, beating his fist on the table and waking Saix out of his silent spell. He merely stood up and walked out of the kitchen like he hadn't seen a thing.

"It's... kind of sad that Saix agreed that Xigbar deserves this," Axel said after he almost fell off of his chair because he was laughing so hard at Xiggy running around the front hall, screaming and waving stupidly at the room as a whole. "It'll wear off in a few days, but until then, I don't think we'll be seeing much of the Birdie!"

"Where'd the Bird go?" Demyx asked, finally managing to stand up and look around.

"Sorry, Demyx, but the Birdie went bye bye!" Roxas yelled, wiping the tears off of his face. "But he'll be back soon!"

"Good!" he replied, jumping up and down. "I want chicken for dinner!"


	4. Schizophrenia

Xigbar was absolutely nowhere to be seen for the rest of the day, but he was still the only thing anybody seemed to be able to talk about. Demyx slowly returned to his normal state of mind, and he had no memory of the night before, which Axel and Roxas informed him was a good thing. He did, however, remember the flight of The Birdie, which they would all burst out laughing about at odd moments, especially at the look of complete terror that had been on Xiggy's face.

"I'm bored," Demyx moaned as they sat in the room Roxas recalled as the room from the day before. " Is there _anything_ we can do?"

"Well, Vexen was muttering something about a new experiment..." Axel replied, hanging upside down on the couch and looking like a huge bat in doing so. "We could go see what that's all about."

"But I don't like it down there!" Demyx argued, shaking his head furiously. "It's gross and cold and dark, and he has a bunch of really creepy things in bottles!"

"Then stop complaining!"

"Maybe we could find something to do on the way to the basement," Roxas added. Axel snorted from the floor, but didn't see anything. "You know, maybe we'll run into Marluxia or Zexion or..." Demyx shot up out of his chair and started walking toward the door.

"C'mon, let's go bug Zexy!" Roxas and Axel exchanged disbelieving glances and slowly followed the energetic Nobody, who was now traveling as though he was part of a marching band.

" You like him, don't you?" Axel teased after they had entered the main hall and Demyx has begun looking around for his target. His face turned and he stared at Axel with his mouth open for a few seconds.

"I do _NOT_!!! What gave you that idea?" he snapped defensively, crossing his arms.

"Just a guess."

"Why, do you?" A look of utter disgust passed over Axel's face and he started making gagging sounds.

"I don't understand why I have to keep telling everybody this, but _I don't like GUYS_!!! Got it memorized?"

"Not word for word, but I think I get the point," Demyx answered, turning away to continue his search.

"Do you know what I think?" Roxas said as Axel grimaced again. "I think..."

"Demy and Zexy, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Axel laughed, and Demyx scowled and covered his ears. "I'd keep going, but I don't know what would end up in the carriage!" Roxas laughed along, but he had a hard time imagining anything that was part Zexion, part Demyx.

"Oh, shut up! You think you're so funny, well I don't see anyone laughing!"

"He is!" Axel replied, pointing at Roxas, who was bent over from laughing at the disturbing image that came to mind.

"OOOOOH!!!" A nearby door flew open, and Vexen peered out at them eerily from the darkness with a pair of neon green goggles strapped to the top of his head.

"If you three aren't doing anything constructive, why don't you come give me a hand down in the lab?" He glanced back toward the stairwell and beckoned for them to follow. Axel shrugged and headed after Vexen, and Roxas began to follow hesitantly, but Demyx looked as though he had been electrocuted and took a step back.

"Oh, no! Never again!" he wailed, and Roxas watched him run back to his room, then started down the stairs and closed the door behind him, knowing Demyx wouldn't mind. The rooms beyond all appeared to be part of a haunted house that had been torn apart after Halloween had passed; it was dark and cold, and he realized Demyx had been right about the jars as an eyeball examined him from within a bottle of thick orange goo.

"Here it is," Vexen said louder than necessary, pointing to a large machine that had been torn apart recklessly, and the pieces were scattered all over the floor. "Somebody has been down here tampering with the experiment, and I'm going to find out who it is, one way or another!" He announced this as though he was claiming a planet for his country, and looked at them as if he thought they knew something they shouldn't.

"Roxas hasn't been here long enough to do anything, and I have better things to do than destroy your experiments, so..." Axel explained to Vexen, who appeared to be awaiting a confession from him. Roxas walked over to a cage by the door and looked inside, seeing nothing until a pair of bright yellow eyes glared back at him.

"You there! Don't touch it! The little bastard bites," Vexen yelled, pointing at Roxas with the inexorable finger.

"What is it?" Roxas asked, looking back at the creature he could barely see in the dark room.

"Damn Shadow Heartless. Found it lurking around down here about a month ago, decided to keep it for an experiment I've been working on, and shall finish soon if these distractions bugger off," he explained with one last accusing look at Axel, then joined Roxas next to the cage. "it keeps Xigbar away, though, but I don't think he's going to be much of a problem, thanks to you two and my missing bird potion." He glanced back at Axel, who shrugged apologetically, although Roxas could tell he didn't really mean it.

"It was for a good cause, was it not?" he said, and Vexen laughed coldly, flicking the cage and sending the Heartless on a traumatic joy ride.

"It is about time someone taught Number Two a lesson, but I do not completely understand what happened last night, seeing as how I was not there." Vexen shuffled over to a small white window and looked through it thoughtfully for a moment before he returned and allowed them to leave.

Upon leaving the dark basement, Roxas and Axel encountered Demyx waiting for them, appearing to have just seen a ghost. He was sitting against the wall on the floor, twiddling his thumbs and glancing around anxiously every few seconds.

"What happened now?" Roxas asked, having a hard time believing that any of the members would be in a hurry to test their luck after they had witnessed Xigbar's punishment.

"V... Vexen!" he hissed loudly, pointing toward the stairs that led to their rooms.

"What the hell...? You aren't drunk again, are you?" Axel asked, and Demyx shook his head, his eyes wide and full of terror. "Then what? We were just talking to Vexen downstairs and..."

" Not _Vexen_!" Demyx answered hurriedly, waving his hands impatiently. "His _clones_!" Axel raised his eyebrows, and a few seconds later burst out laughing.

"You are _so_ paranoid!"

"You don't believe me...? I... I'll show you!" He jumped up and started walking back to his room, arms swinging stiffly. Axel shrugged, and he and Roxas followed Demyx to what would come to be known as "The Room of Disasters". He swung open the door and stormed in cautiously, and smiled grimly halfway across the room. Axel and Roxas simply stood in the doorway and stared in absolute awe, not believing what they were looking at.

"This... Now _this_ is scary," Roxas commented, stepping inside and immediately looking away from the Spongebob underwear hanging from the mirror.

"No kidding." Axe side-stepped to avoid what appeared to be a large, wet wad of purple gum. "Dem, you seriously need to clean this dump."

"Yeah, whatever."

"You know, I don't see any Vexens," Roxas joked as he examined a huge wet spot on the carpet. "Is this where you were standing when you saw...?"

"No, smart ass. For your information, that's been there for a while!"

"How long, exactly?" Axel asked as Demyx gestured for them to go over by the closet.

"None of your business. Look, they're in here!" he said quietly, pointing into the halfway open closet. Roxas pushed the door the rest of the way open and saw a massive hole in the back wall that led somewhere else entirely.

"... Did... you do this?" Roxas asked, which made Demyx begin laughing like a maniac. Axel joined them by the closet and peered into the tunnel, impressed that whatever had made the hole had done so through several feet of solid stone. Roxas was impressed that anything could live in this room for more than five minutes.

"Let me get this straight... An army of Vexens... is living... in a hole... in the wall of your closet?" Axel laughed as Demyx frowned, thinking it over.

"Yeah, sounds right."

"Sounds kind of stupid and pathetic to me," Roxas added, grinning. "Should we tell Vexen about this?"

"That's a good idea... He's probably wondering where his little buddies went," Axel replied as he stood up, brushing a strange yellow powder off of his cloak. "I'll be right back." He disappeared through a black portal, leaving Roxas alone with the crazed Demyx in the room that looked like the other side of a black hole.

"So, how long has this thing been here?" he asked, pointing into the closet. Demyx shook his head, looking worried.

"To tell you the truth, I really don't know." He glanced at it again, and took cover behind the door when Axel reappeared with the real Vexen.

"Ah, I see... Well, consider it done. And I think I know what has been stealing most of my experiments, although I have caught Larxene down there once or twice..." Vexen pulled what appeared to be a cellular phone out of his pocket, held it up toward the hole, and dialed three numbers on the keypad. Several streams of light flew out of the closet and into the machine, then he turned on his heel and conjured another portal. "My work here in finished. And if you still want that experiment, come get it before I destroy it... Thing's getting on my final nerve." Axel nodded and he motioned for Roxas to follow; Demyx was too busy exploring the tunnel to care much about anything else.

"What's he talking about?" Roxas asked once they were out of earshot from Demyx.

"You'll see."


	5. Bob

Axel and Roxas walked to the basement rather slowly, as both knew it would probably be a while before Demyx returned from his expedition. Axel seemed silently amused about something, which completely mystified Roxas.

"A lot of weird stuff happens to Demyx, huh?" Roxas said as they crossed the main hall to the door that led to Vexen's hideout.

"A lot of crazy stuff. He always has all the fun." They descended the stairs to find Number Four waiting at the bottom, holding a cage covered with what appeared to be leather.

"The experiment is complete. If it gives you any trouble, destroy it immediately. Good day." He turned and walked away into the darkness, with Axel holding the cage and Roxas staring at it stupidly.

"We have to walk back…. It can't travel the way we do," Axel explained, then started back up the stairs, holding the cage out in front of him like a lantern.

"What is it?" Roxas asked once they made it back into the light of the hallway.

"A way guaranteed to keep Xiggy far away, _and_ a way to entertain Demyx." They climbed the last flight of stairs and re-entered the disgusting room. Axel closed the door behind Roxas and set the cage down in the doorway a few seconds before Demyx came crawling out of the tunnel, covered with dirt.

"Hello. That was kinda fun!" He stood up and tried to get rid of some of the filth on his cloak, but it did him very little good. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No particular reason. Except for the fact that you look like you just got back from mining for coal," Roxas answered, and Demyx rolled his eyes.

"And blah to you."

"You said you used to have a hamster?" Axel said and Demyx nodded, picking a dead cockroach out of his hair.

"Yeah. His name was Korey. Why do you ask?" He cocked his head to one side and looked at Axel like he had never seen anything like him before.

"Well, Vexen was going to throw this out…. And I thought you might want it, seeing as how everything else seems to collect in this room of yours." He grabbed the cage and threw it to Demyx, who nearly dropped it in surprise.

"What is it?" He ripped off the cover and flinched when he saw the creature underneath. "Are we even allowed to have these things here?"

"Vexen had it, and Mister Mansex and his little sidekick never said a word." The Shadow Heartless peered around at them all, wondering why this place was so light…. And why it smelled so bad.

"So I get to keep it?" The Heartless jumped up and clung to the top of the cage, staring at the strange creature that was sticking its finger through the bars.

"If you want it. Vexen did something to its genetic code to make it obey whoever it belongs to, but not even he knows if it works or not," Axel replied, walking over to the cage. "Down." To Demyx's amazement, the black creature jumped down from the top of its barred prison and looked up at Axel as though it was waiting for another command.

"That's awesome!" Demyx exclaimed as he fiddled with the lock on the cage and finally got the door open. The Heartless zoomed out and climbed up the wall, examining a large water spot on the ceiling.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to let that thing out?" Roxas asked as it let go of the ceiling and fell onto the bed, landing in a pile of dirty clothes.

"Poor thing…. Yeah, it's not like it can cause a ton of trouble, and if all else fails, it'll go chase down Xiggy!" Axel joked, looking hopeful that such a thing would happen.

"What are you going to name it?" Roxas said sarcastically, and the creature leaped down from the bed and crawled over to the closet, investigating the odd, smelly room.

"I think I'll call him… Bob!" Demyx proclaimed, punching the air dramatically. Axel and Roxas glanced at each other, not surprised at Demyx's idea for a good name for his new pet.

"You're kidding, right?" Axel said, shaking his head. "Bob? Bob the Shadow Heartless?" Roxas snorted, and the creature came back from the depths of the closet.

"Yep. That's his name! Don't wear it out!" he answered, smiling as it crawled into a discarded boot and immediately shot back out. "Come here, Bob!" It looked around, then realized that it was the one he was addressing. The Heartless scrambled over to its new owner, stared up at him, then climbed up his leg to sit on his shoulder. Demyx howled with laughter and nearly dislodged the creature, which now clung on for dear life.

"I think that was a good idea," Roxas commented, watching him pet the Heartless.

"I guess it was. And Xiggy's terrified of Shadows, so it'll keep him away," Axel added as they watched Demyx choke for breath. "He'll go slaughter crowds of Soldiers and Gargoyles and Large Bodies and everything else, but when he sees a Shadow, he comes running back like a little girl! It's hilarious!"

"Are you gonna get that bad old Birdie?" Demyx asked Bob, who bopped up and down happily. "Good boy!"

"Do you think he still looks like a bird?" Roxas asked, the image of the "Pritty Birdie" popping into his head.

"Yeah. The solution lasts about four days and even if he plucks out all of the feathers, which he probably has, he'll still have a beak and wings."

"And a tail," Roxas added, remembering the shocked expressions on the faces of the other members.

"And a tail." Demyx laughed, and Bob put his hands up, looking like a surfer.

"He deserves every minute of it!" he shouted, grinning like a lunatic. "He's _never_ going to live that name down!"

"Where did the 'Pritty Birdie' thing come from, anyway?" Roxas asked as Demyx started throwing all of the dirty clothes from on top of his bed into a corner.

"His guns look like wings," Axel responded. "Is that your idea of cleaning?" Bob jumped to the floor and crawled under the bed, and came back out carrying an old roll of toilet paper.

"And you say Vexen's lab is scary!" Roxas teased, watching Demyx peel a Hershey candy wrapper off of the wall and examine the green chocolate plastered to the wall underneath. "At least down there you know nothing will eat you!"

"Ha, ha," Demyx said, picking up a handful of cough drops from the floor. "Don't quit your day job, Mr. Comedian."

"You know, I would offer to help, but I think Roxas has a point," Axel told him as Bob jumped up and down, eating a Snickers bar he had found during his travels under the bed. "I really don't want rabies, thank you very much."

"I think we should get going…." Roxas hinted while Demyx examined a yellow sock that was so dirty that it looked like there was still a foot in it.

"Brilliant idea," Axel muttered, and they both waved goodbye unenthusiastically to the back of Demyx's head and Bob, who was now covered with chocolate.

After encountering Marluxia and killing every item on his long (and often pointless) list of errands, Axel and Roxas moodily returned to Demyx's cathedral of creepiness late in the afternoon. What they saw when they got there, however, was extremely amusing, yet slightly terrifying. Even though the room was considerably cleaner, the old, moth-eaten floral area rug hanging from the ceiling was by no means a pleasant sight. Bob was running around in circles like the sugar had finally taken hold, wearing a straw hat and a grass skirt. Demyx sat on the bed, playing a random tune on his sitar, looking like he was the happiest mentally disturbed being who didn't have a heart that the universe had ever seen. The visitors couldn't comprehend what they were staring at for a moment, and they stood in the doorway trying to think what Demyx's excuse for this could possibly be.

"Aloha," he said brightly, with his multicolored seventies flower headband being the focal point of his corner of the room. Bob jumped up on the bed and clawed at the strings on the instrument, swaying back and forth. "Okay, fine, you little show-off." Roxas entered the room cautiously, followed by Axel who obviously wasn't thrilled to be there.

"What's up with the flowers?" Roxas asked as they sat down on the old black futon in the opposite corner that sounded like it planned to eat them.

"Nothing much. It was Bob's idea, but I think it looks pretty good…. So colorful." The Heartless stomped impatiently, and Demyx put his hands up in surrender. "I know, I know! I'm going!"

"I never knew those things could have temper tantrums!" Axel laughed as Bob began to roll around on the floor. "He's about as hyper as you, Dem."

"Oh, just shut it!" he retorted, beginning to play a song on his sitar. The Heartless immediately stopped throwing its fit and simply stood there, waiting. "Tip-toe through the window, by the window, that is where I'll be; come tip-toe through the tulips with m-eeee!" Axel covered his eyes with his hands as Bob began to do a spasmodic hula dance, and Roxas just looked on in horror. After the seemingly endless song stopped playing, Bob did a back flip and bowed, hopping happily from one foot to the other. Axel looked up at Demyx, amused at what his psychotic friend had taught the poor demented Heartless.

"Are you telling me that while we were running around serving Marley, you were in here _dancing_?" he asked jokingly, pointing at Bob's costume.

"Yep. Sucks for you though."

"No kidding. We get back from doing all of that crap, and come here to be tortured by _this_?" Bob shook his fist angrily at Axel and crawled under the bed.

"He was only kidding, Bob!" Demyx wailed, rolling his eyes. "He takes everything so literally!"


	6. Mysterious Substance

I have to give credit to "Weird" Al for his song, "Livin' In The Fridge". You'll see...

With the announcement of the great division of the Organization, things began to slow down until it seemed like they had stopped altogether. As the next few days dragged by without event or excitement, Roxas started to wonder if life in the Organization was always this way.

Demyx spent most of his time making a nice little house for Bob in the great cave in his closet, coming out only for meals, or to run wildly into the hallway and scream that "they're back!" Axel became extremely difficult to locate, and insisted upon avoiding Demyx's room at all costs. None of the other members knew about Bob until the third day when Xigbar finally came out of hiding, beak- and feather-free.

"Look who finally came back," Xaldin sneered as Xigbar found a seat at the table. "I wouldn't eat the soup tonight if I were you... It has chicken in it." He pretended to ignore this comment, but his face turned scarlet in anger. Demyx, who had come to the dining hall wearing Bob as a hat (to the dismay of Saix) simply couldn't resist showing everybody the other members what he had taught his new pet to do. The Heartless jumped around like it was having a seizure, flapping its arms to a pathetic version of "The Chicken Dance". Xigbar slammed his head down on the table and just sat there silently until most of the others had left the room. When he saw Bob creep over in his direction for the plate of bacon, however, he threw an empty glass at him and began shooting senselessly until he found himself soaking wet, thanks to the now enraged Demyx.

"Bob's my friend! You leave him alone, you big bully!" he yelled, pointing at the shocked Xigbar.

"Take your little insect of darkness and go bug someone else, then!" Xigbar replied, acting like the destruction of the rest of his self-esteem had not just occurred. He turned and began to storm away, but tripped in one of the holes he had shot in the floor on his way out. Roxas started laughing so hard that the orange juice he had been drinking came streaming out his nose, which seemed to amuse Axel more than Xigbar's less-than-graceful flight.

"Nice one, Roxy!" he teased while Roxas tried to stop laughing long enough to do something about his now orange flavored pancakes.

"Cold..." he said, looking at the strange watery mess that waited on the plate before him.

"That's just nasty. You aren't going to eat that, are you?" Roxas shrugged and poked the top pancake as if it was an alligator preparing to bite his arm off.

"What?" Demyx asked, walking back to his seat with Bob riding on his head again.

"There's nothing wrong with it... It just... looks weird," Roxas answered defensively, cutting a piece off.

"I will give you 25 munny if you can eat all of that and not puke," Axel said, laughing at the look of complete disgust on Roxas' face as he speared the bit of pancake.

"Fine," he responded, twirling the fork in his hand.

"Go on, then. Eat your snot-topped orange pancakes drowning in cheap syrup. Go on." Roxas glared at Axel, who obviously found it supremely entertaining.

"Make it 30," he said as he stuck it in his mouth and began choking on the awful creation.

"Done. It's worth it." Bob eyed the pancakes hungrily and jumped down on the table to try some of the nauseating syrup that had pooled on the side of the plate, but returned to his seat on Demyx's head after only one sample.

"That's really encouraging..." Roxas muttered as the Heartless peered at him from across the table.

"Come on! You were so keen on eating it! Do it!"

"It's the nastiest thing I've ever eaten! Why don't you come try some?"

"Okay, no. The juice came out of _your _nose, you eat it!"

"Oh, so _that's_ what this is about! I understand now!" Demyx declared happily, drawing attention from Marluxia and Xaldin down the table. "Why would you eat that?"

"I don't know! I need munny!"

"You do realize that Mr. Toilet-Water over there is telling you not to, right? That's not a good sign." Demyx looked appalled and stared at Axel like he had just turned into a Vexen.

"That was TOILET WATER!" Axel grinned to Demyx's horror. "That's _disgusting_!"

"Well, I guess what you don't know doesn't hurt you!" Axel remarked, and Demyx looked as though he was going to vomit.

"How could you do that to someone's drink? You said it was lemonade!"

"It was. Made from toilet water." Roxas pushed his plate away, having decided that eating that abomination was not worth the munny.

"That's _still_ nasty!" By this time, everybody in the room was staring at them, and Xaldin seemed to find the lemonade incident hilarious. Roxas stood up and walked over to the fridge, hoping to find something else he could eat, but Zexion stopped him a few feet short.

"If I were you, I wouldn't eat anything out of there," he said, pointing to the large silver appliance. "You can't even tell what 75 of the crap is." Axel had joined the group in the kitchen and yanked open the door, mostly to show Roxas that it was true.

"You see this?" he asked, holding up a zip-loc bag that was full of a greenish-black colored sludge. "This was bread about a week after I joined the Organization. And that bowl that looks like it has dog meat in it... Well, that was rice about two months ago."

"But the thing in the freezer that looks like a purple chicken head... That's exactly what it is," Zexion added and Roxas looked both disgusted and amused. "It's Vexen's."

"O-kay. I am _not_ hungry anymore!" he declared, turning pale at the thought of what else could be lurking in this thing.

"If you would like a better explanation... Hey, Dem! Fridge Song!" Axel yelled across the room after hesitating for a moment, wondering whether or not he really wanted to listen to Demyx sing right now.

"Okay! 'There's something weird in the fridge today, I don't know what it is... Food I can't recognize! My roommate won't throw a thing away, I guess it's probably his; it looks like it's _alive_! And livin' in the fridge!'" Bob jumped down from his seat on Demyx's head and began jumping around like an idiot, and Roxas watched and listened, absolutely horrified.

"'There's something gross in the fridge today, it's green and growin' hair; it's been there since _July_! If you can name the object in that baggie over there, then mister you're a better man than I! It's livin' in the fridge! Tell me do you think it should be carbon-dated, fumigated, or cremated and buried at sea! Try to save a little bit of your home cookin', couple weeks later you've got a scary lookin' specimen! It always happens, my friend! Again and again and again and again! Well, something stinks in the fridge today, and it's been rottin' there all week! It could be liver cake or woolly mammoth steak; well, maybe I should take another peek... AAAHHHHH! Livin' in the fridge! You can't stop the mold from growin'! Livin' in the fridge! Can't tell what it is at all! Livin' in the fridge! You can't stop the mold from growin'! Livin' in the fridge!... Don't know what it is, don't know what it is, don't know what it is, don't know what it is, don't know what it is at ALL! It's livin' in the fridge!" The remaining members applauded unenthusiastically, but Roxas was just glad that the awful song was over.

"Now do you understand?" Axel asked, shoving a bowl of multicolored clam chowder to the back of the fridge.

"Yeah. It's kind of hard not to." Roxas almost gagged as Axel examined a dark green object.

"Looks like lunch meat. Hey, Luxord! Want a sandwich?"

"Not hardly," Number Ten replied, rolling the dice for the card game they were playing. "Are you sure that's even lunch meat?" Axel held the limp green slab away from his face and looked at it again, his expression turning to one of indifference.

"My best guess is either ham or bologna, but it could be just about anything by now, seeing how long it's been in here!" He tossed the moldy circular item aside, turning back to the fridge to find another example of the horror coming from living with so many pack rats. A gallon of chunky, neon yellow milk was slammed down on the counter, followed by a huge chunk of black cake that had many holes throughout.

"Larxene's birthday. That stuff is from September. Times flies, does it not? February already!" Marluxia commented, a tone of odd happiness creeping into his voice. "Good times, good times." Roxas was disgusted at the concept of saving food from every occasion.

"Why don't you guys just keep a scrapbook or something... I don't know, NORMAL?" Xaldin shook his head, taking a swig from his flask.

"This is easier... And much more amusing," he replied, grabbing some of the nearby plates and taking them over to the sink.

"But this is just... nasty!" Roxas argued. Bob jumped up onto the counter to explore the food, but took one bite of the cake and started gagging.

"You know, I think he's right..." Axel commented, pulling a half-eaten turkey leg out of a drawer on the door. "Is this from...?"

"Last Thanksgiving," Xaldin answered, one of his ginsus scraping Roxas' pancakes off of the plate.

"What do you mean?"

"Last Thanksgiving. 2006." Axel threw the leg into the trash can, then began rubbing the green meat off of his hand.

"That's... Ugh! There's no word for that!" Xaldin laughed coldly, walking back to the table for some more plates.

"You haven't seen the worst of it yet," he laughed, pointing to the drawer on the left side, and Roxas stared dumbfounded at the padlock.

"What's in there?" he asked, a voice inside his head urgently telling him to leave now.

"Kid, I don't think you want to know."

"What, is it toxic waste or something?"

"Probably as good as by now..." Axel said, holding his hand out to Xaldin for the key, and received it from the hesitating member. "_You_ get to open it." He gave the key to Roxas, who slowly bent down and staggered back as soon as the lock was off. He stared down at the millions of green and white residents of the drawer.

"Ugh, what is that?"

"It was... I don't know. ARGH! That's fucking lethal!" Axel yelled, holding his nose and backing away. Marluxia, Lexaeus, and Luxord watched cautiously, preparing to run senselessly in the other direction if either of the two examiners dropped to the floor. Xaldin merely laughed, or at least he did until he caught a whiff of the thick green and white mystery substance.

"Okay, okay! That drawer's gotta go!" He keeled over the sink, losing his share of the breakfast he had spent all morning on. "Take it away!" Axel pushed the drawer shut with his foot and bent down to replace the lock, his eyes watering slightly.

"That's rancid! I think we'll keep it just a little longer..." he said, returning to his seat with a disappointed glance from Marluxia, who had hoped there would be one less Nobody leaving the room today.

"Why? It's not helping anybody!" Roxas argued, grabbing a piece of hard toast.

"You don't see a mold colony like that every day... There has to be something we can do with it." Bob sniffed the old cake again and pushed it unhappily into the trash can. "We'll think of something. It's not like it's going anywhere!"

"It'll probably start producing intelligent life soon!" Roxas joked, remembering the thousands and thousands of specks staring back up at him.

"Thank the heavens. They know we need some kind of intelligence here..." Marluxia muttered, drawing a card.


	7. Lasers And Idiocy

Even Saix was surprised when his superior appeared, and Roxas had to leave the room wen he realized the long, gray hair didn't belong to an older woman, but to the leader of Organization XIII. He thought he had discovered the end of his sanity when Xemnas turned during the meeting to reveal a bright pink sticky note proclaiming that he deserved to be kicked. Larxene snickered from the next seat, tying to hide her amusement but failing miserably. Xemnas glared at her through narrowd eyes, which obviously didn't terrify Number Twelve the way he had hoped it would.

"We are here for one reason, and one reason only: Kingdom Hearts!" he exclaimed to the room as a while, although Roxas was pretty much the other one listening, except for Saix. Luxord had begun shuffling his cards again, Zexion was reading a book that had something to do with the construction of a nuclear bomb, and Demyx was listening to his iPod, rocking out every time Xemnas turned his back to him. A few of the other members had pulled up their hoods and fallen asleep during their leader's seemingly endless speech. The most amusing part of the meeting was, without a doubt, Axel and his laser pointer. The little light show was conducted throughout most of the meeting without Xemnas noticing, until the entertainment came to an end with Xigbar waking up to the gray haired menace floating inches from his face, along with a light saber that was preparing to behead him; Roxas hadn't believed that they actually existed until that moment.

"Wh – what?!" he screamed, jumping up and falling off of his throne, slamming into the floor.

"Fly Pritty Birdie, fly away!" Larxene shouted, followed by a roar of laughter from those who were awake.

"You mock me Number Two... Why?" Xemnas hissed, greatly resembling a snake as Xigbar teleported back to his seat, his face still hidden by his hood.

"I do not mock you!" he answered, his "polite" speech sounding so stupid that many members continued laughing. He noticed a small red dot from several seats over. "I do not. However, Number Eight does!" He pointed like a tattletale at Axel, a fake expression of disbelieving horror passing over his face.

"Not I! Never, sir." Luxord examined the laser that had just been passed to him through a small portal, turning it over and hiding it up his sleeve as the other had. "You do not trust me? But we all know that I was not responsible for that incident, sir." Roxas knew that his friend really didn't care about what Xemnas thought about him, but it was easy for him to see that he was saying this to make a fool of the leader of the Organization.

"He is your superior. You have not earned respect. You have not proven your loyalty." The red, murderous eyes searched Axel's face for a sign of anything other than his pathetic impression of pleading, but when a third red eye appeared in the middle of Xemnas' forehead, Roxas was sure Axel would meet his end.

"Sir, I must say one other thing to you," he said, pointing to the jittery red eye. "You have not yet found the one who mocks you." Xemnas glanced up, infuriated only to stare at Luxord, who had passed the laser to Xaldin by means of teleporting it. Axel sat back in his chair and crossed his arms again, a smirk barely visible on his face.

"I did not a thing," Luxord told his superior, his eyes wide and his face looking reproachful, like a mutant puppy from Mars. Xigbar, seeing the dot on the side of Xemnas' head, pulled his hood back and started screaming stupidly, pointing to Number Three.

"He has it!" The laser then flew to Larxene, and Xaldin shook his head solemnly, looking at Xigbar as though he was mentally disturbed.

"How dare _you_ blame _me_!" he roared as Xemnas caught sight of the red light, which instantly disappeared and showed up in Xigbar's hand. Larxene looked around behind her, her face showing terror while her eyes showed the cold, expressionless emotion they always held as she got revenge.

"See! Here it is!" Xigbar screamed, holding the laser up.

Xigbar was nowhere to be seen for the rest of the day. Roxas was nothing short of amazed that none of them had been caught, but it was widely agreed that Xiggy's suffering was well worth the risk; obviously, Number Three's punishment held no real value in the eyes of any of the other members. The thing that shocked Roxas the most, however, was the fact that they had actually worked _together_ to humiliate Xemnas, even though pretty much all of those involved hated each other's guts.

"Did you see the look on his face?!" Xaldin shouted a few minutes after the end of the meeting as they stood in the kitchen as he finished off another glass of sake. "It was worth a million in munny!" He poured himself and Luxord another glass, despite the killer glance Marluxia shot in their direction.

"You had better not make chicken tomorrow!" Roxas slowly made his way over to the fridge, grabbing the plate of left-over sandwiches and returning to his silent corner of the table. Demyx has disappeared after the meeting had let out, and Axel sat wordlessly, lost in thought.

"What's up with you?" he asked his friend, picking one of Marluxia's rose petals off of his dinner.

"Xemnas," he replied, pushing the plate away and putting his feet up on the table. "He treats everybody but Saix like complete shit." Roxas looked over at him to see that he had returned to staring at the hole Xigbar had made shot in the wall the time he had encountered Bob in this room.

"What do you mean?" Axel glanced over at the group of laughing Nobodies at the other end of the table, making random noises to start the jeering again.

"Right after I joined, Saix decided he didn't like having an inferior who didn't fear him, and planted evidence that I was feeding inside information about the Organization to an enemy," he explained, conjuring a small sphere of fire and throwing it up into the air and catching it, showing little concern for burning anything nearby. "Since then, Sir Mansex has been nothing short of a total asshole... Then again, it fits his namesake, doesn't it?" Roxas snorted, throwing another petal aside and grabbing a second sandwich.

"Only you would come up with something like that," he laughed. He looked up at Axel to find that his face had hardened at the sight of Saix entering the room. Xaldin's group of now halfway drunken idiots fell silent and watched the furious Number Seven make his way over toward Roxas.

"Don't get too comfortable in this form. You will pay soon enough," he hissed, barely above a whisper his hair beginning to stand on end. Axel stood up, his eyes glowing with absolute hatred, a cold, empty look overtaking the green.

"We'll just see about that." Saix bared his teeth like a rabid dog and stalked off, the conversation on the other side of the room slowly resuming. "Fucker." Axel sat back down, anger still lingering about his face.

"Yeah."

"I never understood why the little Moon Man's ugliness and his temper tantrums always end up getting him his way." Roxas jumped when Xaldin and Luxord began singing what he guessed to be an old love song.

"Oh, that's awful!" he said, covering his ears after throwing the rest of his sandwich down as Axel flinched. "Now they're definitely shitfaced!"

"No kidding!" Axel replied, getting up to leave. "Come on." They quickly exited the room as the song became a bellow.

"Unbreak my heart! Say you love me again! Undo the hurt that you caused when you walked out the door and walked out of my life!"


	8. Riots And Regrets

At the end of the week, Roxas awoke to the sounds of angry protest outside his door, and at first thought that Xigbar had found himself in deep trouble, as usual. He climbed into his cloak and cautiously opened the door to find most of the Organization clustered around the bulletin board nailed into the wall next to his room. He glanced down to the other end of the hall and saw Demyx and Axel waiting for the vicious crowd to clear before going anywhere near the new announcement. Axel waved rather unenthusiastically, and Roxas decided he would be better off as far away from the seething crowd as he could get.

"What's happening?" he asked after he had fought for his life to break free from the mob of loud, morbidly cussing Nobodies. Axel smirked as Larxene stepped forward and began stabbing the picture of Xemnas tacked to the board, with cheers from several other people.

"New assignments," he replied simply as Number Three grabbed the nearby letter Saix had written and threw it up into the air, where his ginsus made sure it met its demise. "Obviously, some people aren't too happy."

"I don't want to go to that fucking dump!!" Larxene howled, ripping the board from the wall and splitting it in half over the nearest member's head. She threw one piece down the length of the hallway and held the other over her head as thought it was the true key to Kingdom Hearts. Luxord grabbed the piece of discarded wood and began playing a demented game of frisbee with Lexaues; Roxas was surprised to see him actually interacting with another living being. Axel was leaning against the wall, laughing manically at the scene of complete anarchy while Demyx looked on in horror.

"What the hell?!" Xigbar screamed, stepping out into the hall and having to dodge the frisbee-board.

"Relocation!" Vexen bellowed unexpectedly, followed by another roar of cursing from the rest of the crowd. A short time later Saix appeared, his face as white as a ghost in anger. The other members began raging at him about how stupid and incompetent their leadership was, and what the fuck the point of moving would be, but these comments fell on deaf ears. Axel turned to leave, followed closely by Roxas, and Demyx ran out ahead of both of them after the killer frisbee-board hit him in the stomach.

It turned out that leaving at that moment had been the best thing any of them could have done. Xaldin found himself sentenced to solitary confinement, and several of the others ended up being sent to the recovery ward, but one "nameless" member had gone to the emergency room in a nearby world; Roxas didn't have to guess that it was Xigbar. Saix had had to take a rather brutal beating, yet he somehow managed to sort out the chaos in the end. Marluxia had tried to convince Saix that perhaps moving the Organization wasn't a good idea in a more sensible way, but ended up needing nineteen stitches down the right side of his face, courtesy of the fully enraged Number Seven. Every person involved with the riot found themselves needing medical attention in one form or another, except for Luxord, who later received a broken arm as punishment for pointing this out. Roxas still couldn't believe that such a thing had occurred five hours later when Xigbar returned from the hospital.

"Such idiots they are!" Marluxia spat, slamming his empty soda can down on the table. "No sense among them at all! Perhaps there is such a thing as a Mindless, for they have obviously fallen victim to such a creature!" Axel snorted in amusement and Roxas started choking on his sad, four-day-old turkey sandwich.

"You aren't supposed to inhale it," Axel joked as Lexaeus punched him in the back to keep him from suffocating on the dry bread.

"No kidding," Roxas hissed, his back stinging from Number Five's half-hearted assistance; he thought he had "saved" him just to have an excuse to hit him. "So why's everybody so pissed off, anyway?" Axel glanced at the empty plate that had, a short while before, held about a dozen sandwiches. They were beginning to miss Xaldin.

"Almost everybody has been reassigned to the new headquarters," he explained, shoving his plate away moodily. Larxene let out a high-pitched laugh as she walked past, a huge bruise near her right eye.

"New headquarters? Ha! That place is a total shithole!" she said, taking the chair Demyx usually occupied. "Who wants to live in a sandcastle?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Even after living with these people for over a week, Roxas still had no idea what to expect from one moment to the next.

"The pathetic losers who call themselves out superiors couldn't find anywhere to relocate us to other than a castle made out of two-thousand year old dirt," Axel replied, crossing his arms and looking annoyed at the newcomer.

"Maybe it was a mistake to join these idiots," Larxene muttered, leaning her head on her hand and looking vacantly across the table at Axel.

"If they're so stupid and can't even find us somewhere decent to live, why _do_ we stay here?" Roxas asked, watching Number Twelve pull a few loose strands of hair back behind her ear.

"When you joined, you agreed that you will remain with the Organization until it breaks, or whatever," she answered, appearing extremely bored as she traced the scratches in the table with her finger.

"So, in other words, we're stuck here until somebody ends up kicking our asses out of existence, Xemnas and Saix both somehow end up assassinated, or we find our hearts and break the contracts with Mister Mansex," Axel said, and Larxene started laughing.

"Wait, what contract?" Roxas didn't remember signing anything, and knew that Saix had avoided informing him about many aspects of the Organization already.

"You're stuck here until one of the things he said happens, or Zexion finds a loophole," she responded, tapping the table impatiently. "No luck yet."

"Yeah, even Saix is having second thoughts... Xemmie's finally lost it. He's always talking to himself these days..."

"He's not the only one, either." Axel pointed across the room at Vexen, who had just come from god knew where, grumbling angrily about something (or somebody). "But he's just off his rocker, that one."

"I don't know if that is supposed to be humorous, or tragic," Marluxia said, opening another can of cherry flavored soda, since there was nothing better to drink due to the temporary confinement of the only member who would go grocery shopping. Vexen didn't appear to have noticed them, even after he walked right past them on his way out the other door, still muttering to himself.

"He's a lunatic in more ways than one," Axel remarked as Larxene stood up to leave, her black and purple face reminding Roxas strangely of a blueberry.

"Good luck, people!" she told them, turning and disappearing on the spot.

"Oh, crap!" Axel groaned after he had glanced at the clock. "Meeting time! Crap!"

"Let me guess, it's about what happened this morning."

"Yeah. Crap! Ugh..."

"Come on! You have to have a better word for it than that!" Roxas laughed as they began to make their way to the meeting room, where they would spend an hour and a half being yelled at and being bored to death.

"You're right. Fucking psycho crap!" Marluxia looked over at them with distaste, but said not a word as he went past. They started laughing, partly because of what had been said, but mostly because of the look of supreme confusion on Demyx's face as he joined them on the journey to "death by blah", as he called it.

"What do you think they're gonna say?" Roxas asked as they entered the throne room, and Axel shrugged.

"No clue. But they _never_ say anything worthwhile! Why would this time be any different?" He warped to his seat and recrossed his arms, staring unhappily at the middle of the room. Demyx waved goodbye and departed, giving Roxas the feeling that it was a final farewell; and it probably was, seeing as how half of the other people appeared to be dead. Saix appeared at the center of the floor, preparing to speak, and Roxas went to his seat as well.

"Good evening," Number Seven said sarcastically, looking around at each member in turn as if daring them to do something about him being there. "As you probably know, it seems like none of you think it a good idea ti split the Organization..."

"It's not the split! It's the piece of shit you call headquarters you're sending us to!" Larxene yelled, her hood covering her face. Saix turned and merely smiled, as if to today was the merriest day the universe had ever encountered in all of time.

"I don't believe I asked for your opinion, Number Twelve. You have very little power in the Organization... Whereas I have to ability to convert you to a Dusk." Larxene sat back in her chair and didn't speak another word, but she also didn't listen to a word Saix said. "Anyone else? Anything else to say? I didn't _think_ so!"

"Asshole," Roxas heard Xigbar mutter as the speaker walked toward Axel, a soulless sneer plastered on his face.

"As I am sure we are all aware, this kind of behavior will NOT be tolerated any longer. If ANY of you EVER put another toe out of line again, there will be fewer Nothings here than ever before." The look upon Number Eight's face reflected pure rage as Roxas had never seen before in any imaginable form, and (although he would never admit it), it scared the hell out of him; yet Saix looked even more inhuman as he stood there and smiled wider, finding Axel's hatred more amusing than anything else. "Especially you."


	9. The Great Divide

Roxas and Axel stood in the main hall of the new castle, staring around at the filthy, crumbling walls; Axel thought Demyx was incredibly lucky due to the fact that he had been left at Castle Oblivion. They dropped their bags containing their few remaining possessions in their rooms and headed up to the roof, wanting to escape the endless complaining and groans the others spewed constantly. It was beginning to get dark, and the rocky landscape beyond the town cast long shadows across the scattered debris that once stood as a proud and lively town before the Heartless had invaded. Other than the Organization, no signs of life were visible in any direction, for even the plants had died.

"Depressing, isn't it?" Axel commented, looking down at the houses that had been. "This was one of the first worlds the Heartless took. They probably won't come back, either... The heart of this world is... gone." Roxas glanced up at his friend, seeing the same kind of emptiness in his eyes. Did all of them feel it? Could Nobodies sense if worlds had lost their hearts? What about people? Roxas couldn't really tell, for he had been surrounded by other Nobodies since he had lost his heart. He wanted to ask, but he felt that it was something Axel wouldn't know much about.

"Are you okay?" Roxas asked, finally expressing his growing concern for Number Eight, who merely gave a partial smile. He has been so strange lately, so distant... But who was Roxas to judge? He really didn't know anything about him; he didn't know where he had come from, how he had come to be a Nobody, or even what his original name had been.

"It's nothing, really. Just stupid Saix."

"You know, you shouldn't let him get to you."

"Yeah." His response was so mechanical that Roxas started to wonder if it was possible to become less than a Nobody. Something was wrong.

"You... you can tell me," Roxas said, looking away to avoid eye contact with Axel. There was silence for a while as they watched their new sun sink below the horizon to make the emptiness even more complete.

"It's nothing," he repeated, turning back to the door and leaving Roxas standing at the edge of the rooftop. "But things are going to get a lot worse." The sliver of dull light coming from the inside of the castle narrowed until it disappeared completely, and Roxas simply stared after it.

The next morning when Roxas woke up, it was still dark out, and there was no noise coming from the rooms of the other members. His watch said it was three in the morning, but his brain told him it was ten at night. Not able to get back to sleep, he began to unpack, noticing that Bob had left a half-eaten cupcake in his backpack. He rolled his eyes and threw it into the overflowing trash can, along with one of Demyx's torn up manga magazines.

"I specifically remember telling him I didn't _want_ anything," Roxas muttered to himself, tossing a pair of socks into his dresser. "No fucking clue what he thinks a going-away present is..."

"Talking to yourself again, huh? Must be contagious." Roxas turned to see Axel sitting on the edge of his bed, looking tired but better than he had the night before. "It's not a good habit."

"I don't recall asking _you_," he replied, grinning as he pushed his last book into place on the shelf.

"I don't recall caring." He glanced around curiously, and, upon catching sight of the magazine on top of the mountain of trash, burst out laughing. "Rox-as! You read that crap?!"

"What?" he asked, snatching it and quickly flipping through it, seeing nothing of interest.

"THAT! Yaoi!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Is that the name of the series or...?"

"No, no! It's... guy on guy!" Roxas looked at the cover and back at Axel, confused.

"Guy on g... Ugh!" He dropped the magazine and kicked it back into the trash corner, his face burning. "Demyx stuck it in my bag!"

"Yeah, right!" Roxas flinched at the thought of where it had been, what it had seen... And he had _touched_ it!!

"Ugh! That's disgusting!"

"I know what we can do with it..." Axel said, smirking with an evil look in his eyes. "Saying that _you_ don't want it."

"NO! I already told you! It's not mine!"

"Okay, whatever! I know Demy collects them, anyway. But we could give it to... someone else." Roxas didn't even have to guess who Axel was talking about, seeing as how Number Two was pretty much the target of anything evil he thought of.

"Do you think... he would actually _read_ it?"

"Well, Larxey's taken, he doesn't have a girlfriend (or a boyfriend, as far as we know), and it looks like both of the characters have long hair, so..."

"Kinda like _you_?"

"Shut up, Roxy. It might work. Who knows, we might find one of Xiggy's hobbies!"

"My name is _not Roxy_!" Axel shrugged and grabbed the disturbing magazine, and they made their way down the hall and into the kitchen, where they slipped it under Xigbar's chair, hoping he would find it. Xaldin was already awake and preparing breakfast, but he didn't appear to have noticed them, or their plan.

About half an hour later, Number Two migrated south from his room, grabbing a cup of black coffee and a piece of slightly burnt toast, but his attention was immediately caught by the bright pink book under his seat. After doing his best to pick it up stealthily, he read a passage off of the back cover, and his face twisted into a mutated smile. He sat down and began flipping through the pages, ignoring his pathetic breakfast.

"What's that?" Xaldin asked, throwing his towel aside and joining Xigbar in looking through his new-found treasure.

"What do you think it is, dumbass!"

"Not what you think it is," Axel muttered, tearing off the half of his toast that was burnt and throwing it back onto the plate. "I wonder how long this'll take." Lexaeus and Vexen traveled to the remaining space behind Xigbar to stare at the pages as well, but upon seeing the name of the magazine, Zexion sat next to Axel and Roxas to watch the others with amusement.

"You aren't gonna join them?" Roxas asked, giving up on rescuing the small part of his toast that was edible. Zexion shook his head and grimaced when the excited group of Nobodies across the table began laughing like little kids at something in the horrible magazine.

"No. I _know _what that is. Demyx used to read those all the time." He grabbed a sausage and continued his staring at the group of idiots.

"Hey, what's that?" Xigbar asked, pointing to something on the left page, his eye widening and his face turning as white as a sheet when he realized what they were _really_ reading.

"It looks like a..." Vexen started, stepping back in horror, and Lexaeus followed, both walking to the far end of the table to try to escape the memory.

"AAAAHHHHHH!!" Xaldin screamed, taking cover in the kitchen, and pretending to be caring for the pan of overcooked eggs, his entire head a strange purple color. Xigbar, however, just sat there, holding the magazine but seeing nothing. Roxas, Axel, and Zexion tried to hide their amusement at the group's complete horror, but it was next to impossible after the horrible scene.

"Hey, Roxas," Axel said late in the afternoon as they sat on the floor of his room, playing a game of poker with a deck of extremely beat up cards. "What happened to Demy's book?"

"I dunno," he replied, drawing one of the five kings of hearts. "Xiggy had it last." They looked as each other, then burst out laughing at the disturbing thought of what Number Two was probably doing at that moment...


End file.
